sigurd lewerentz_church of st peter

8/10/2019 Sigurd Lewerentz_Church of St Peter

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The wall is rough brick, very rough with unusuallywide joints. The pointing is not raked or trowelled asusual but bagged off, crudely wiped with an oldsack, causing the bricks to be smeared. From time totime this texture is relieved by another in acutecontrast: a pure semi-reflective plane of glass with aperfect silver edge, evidently applied to the outside ofthe wall [1a]. Its delicate form is held in position bythe crudest means: a bracket in each corner secured

with two screws [1b]. This window in St Peters ChurchKlippan, by Sigurd Lewerentz, is a favourite witharchitects, for once seen it is never forgotten; but it isonly imitated by the brave. First a brick hole is

formed, a pure rectangular void surrounded by apure brick edge. A thick layer of mastic is thenapplied to the outside face of the hole, and a sealeddouble-glazing unit a few centimetres larger ispressed into place, the brackets screwed on to retainit. From inside there seems hardly a window at all,for the glass remains invisible and frameless, simplya brick hole in a thick brick wall. On the outside theprecision and fragility of the glass contrastpoignantly with the brutality of the brickwork. It isof course a fixed window, ventilation being supplied

by other means.This arresting detail is typical of numerous

instances at St Peters when assumptions aboutbuilding methods and good practice are apparently

thrown into question. It produced a new andunexpected architectural vocabulary, but it can alsobe read as a commentary on the significance ofexpressed construction, on deriving a buildingsidentity from its tectonic nature. St Peters wasLewerentzs last major work, begun when he was 78

years old, and carried through with greatfastidiousness and constant site-supervision. It is asextreme a statement in its different way as Miessgallery described in the last chapter. The two

buildings were conceived and built at more or lessthe same time, and the two architects were almostprecise contemporaries, Mies born in1886 and

Lewerentz in 1885. Arguably, they were equallyobsessive in their pursuit of materials and detailing,and equally indebted to the Classical Tradition, butLewerentzs work moved in quite a different directionfrom Miess. From the beginning of his career, he wasinterested in irregularity and conflicting ordersrather that in the calm finality sought by Mies. Andfar from purifying a buildings appearance byerasing every mark left by the hand, Lewerentz asked

history arq . vol 6 . no 2 . 2002 159

history

1b1a

1 Once seen, neverforgotten andimitated only by thebrave. Part of an

unexpectedarchitectural

vocabularya Mirror-likewindows of parishrooms at outer

south-east cornerb Fixing detail

showing brick hole,mastic bed andmetal bracket.Note the bagged-

off brickworkpointing

This modest building questions basic assumptions about processes

and finishes, about the nature of brickwork and the detailing of

window frames and provides a powerful space for worship.

Sigurd Lewerentz:Church of St Peter, Klippan, 196366Peter Blundell Jones


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arq . vol 6 . no 2 . 2002 history60

Peter Blundell Jones Sigurd Lewerentz: Church of St Peter, Klippan, 196366

3a

3b

4a

4b

2

2 Classical vigour.Lewerentzs earlymasterpiece: Chapelof the Resurrection,Enskede Cemetery,Stockholm, 1926,west side seenfrom the sunkengarden

3 Classicism meets theNordic farmhousea Classicism inpainted woodb Rough farmstead

in logs andgranite

4 A synthesis betweenopposite poles:Stockholm PatentOffice by Ragnarstberga Main frontb Corner detail: theintended render wasnever applied

5 The subtleinteraction of given

and imposed orders:Chapel of theResurrectiona The portico standsat the end of thelongest straight routein the cemeteryb Plan showing the2 shift between thechapel (aligned withthe sunken westgarden see 2) andthe portico (alignedwith its approachroute)


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his workers to refrain from tidying up, making themarks of the process more obvious. In completecontrast with Mies, for example, he had them leavethe welded and soldered joints with irregular

pimples of melted metal protruding. At times therawness is shocking, a dirty architecture as opposedto Miess obsessively clean one. And if, like Mies,Lewerentz still held to a concern for geometry andproportion visible in the completely orthogonalplan with its square within a square and carefullymodulated dimensions, the three-dimensionalcomposition of St Peters is untidy, asymmetrical,contextual, contingent; its irregularities are notrepressed but relished. Despite the Classical rigour ofan early masterpiece like his Chapel of theResurrection of 1926 [2], Lewerentz seems in his late

work to have returned increasingly to the NationalRomanticism of his youth, reworking it in an entirelynew form.

The Scandinavian background

That this symphony of the raw and the rough shouldhave occurred in Scandinavia is no accident. Cities

were small, industrialization late, and in the extremenorthern climate the powers of nature were moredirectly felt. Classicism [3a], romantically linked withthe distant Mediterranean sun, was opposed by theraw Nordic farmhouse of rough-hewn logs set ongranite boulders [3b], celebrated at the time ofLewerentzs architectural education by the NationalRomantic movement, for he and Asplund weretaught by two of its Swedish leaders, Ragnar stbergand Carl Westman.1 For both these architects,however, the Classical example was also ever-presentand they struggled to achieve a synthesis betweenthese opposite poles. So while stbergs masterpieceStockholm City Hall drew on the irregular VenetianGothic of the Doges Palace, his Stockholm patentoffice boasted a symmetrical and Classical front [4a].Even so, the patent office has the rawest and roughest

brickwork, as if waiting for a coat of render that wasnever applied [4b].

National Romanticism, which exploded acrossEurope in the 1890s from Finland to Hungary, was acomplex phenomenon. The celebration of localculture and identity that seems to lie at its heart wasalready artificial and self-conscious, performed on

an international stage.2 Its ubiquitous half-roundarches, for example, derive from H. H. Richardson inthe United States, learned through publications.Even the most apparently local manifestations were

part of this larger debate: the quintessentiallyCatalan Gaud is unthinkable without the exampleof Viollet-le-Duc, just as the Glaswegian Mackintoshdepends on Pugin and the Arts and Crafts Movement.Even the intense regionalist Theodor Fischer, for

whom Lewerentz briefly worked on a visit toGermany around 1910, was not tied to one place. Hethought respecting a context meant learning thelocal architectural language, and he builtcontrasting Bavarian, Swabian and Tyrolean

buildings not from the viewpoint of the artless localbut as visiting professor. What he relished in the task quite legitimately was the discovery of anddialogue with the place, the participation in geniusloci.3

Behind the pan-European National Romanticmovement the Gothic was a powerful inspiration the Gothic, that is, as understood through the simplepolemic of Pugin, the sophisticated aesthetic stanceof Ruskin and the scholarly analysis of Viollet.4 It wasrelished for its honest and direct use of materials,

but also for its complex, irregular and articulatedforms. Understandably, it was taken as a refreshmentfor the architectural debate in counterpoint to

various forms of tired academic Classicism. It couldbe seen as a design philosophy of responsiveness tolocal need as opposed to the imposition of an idealorder, and of returning to naked building as opposedto the grafting on of borrowed iconographies likeicing on a cake. The adoption of local vernacular

building traditions as manifestations of a Gothicspirit makes sense for both of these oppositions,however nonsensical it may seem in relation toGothic as a style.5 The Classical heritage within theGothic could, of course, be ignored.

Lewerentz and Erik Gunnar Asplund were bothstudents of the breakaway Klara School. Their careersdeveloped in parallel and they worked together for

18years on their mutual masterpiece, EnskedeCemetery in southern Stockholm.6 Having absorbedthe lessons of National Romanticism they bothpassed through an intensely Neo-Classical period inthe late teens and 1920s, when they not only applied


Sigurd Lewerentz: Church of St Peter, Klippan, 196366 Peter Blundell Jones

5a

5b


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added to the cemetery in 1926, is his most severelyformal Classical building, yet its asymmetry is themaking of it. The noble portico [5a], set on the axis ofthe Way of Seven Wells, the longest straight route onthe site, is detached from the chapel, whoseorientation follows the axis of the sunken westgarden. The two axes are not normal but 2 out, and

rather than concealing this fact like most architects,Lewerentz played it up through the skeweddisjunction of the two buildings [5b]. This gesturemakes all the difference, for it shows that the partsare separate entities, their relationship not self-contained but given by the place. This would be quitealien to Mies, incomprehensible even. Parallelexamples are legion in Lewerentzs work, and foundalso in Asplunds.

Lewerentz and Asplund developed the cemeteryuntil 1933, taking turns to build its various parts.Together they developed preparatory designs for themain crematorium, but after some difficulties with

the clients, Asplund was asked to continue alone,and Lewerentz broke off all contact until Asplundsearly death in 1940. Lewerentz lived on: discouraged

by this and other disappointments he built little andbecame something of a recluse, but he ran his firm.An elaborate and ingenious restoration programmefor Uppsala Cathedral was not taken up (Ahlin 1987:147148). He faded into obscurity as far as theprofession was concerned, only to re-emerge quitesuddenly with a handful of remarkable late works,20years after the death of his rival. St Peters is the

best of these. Its architectural language was adevelopment of that employed at the slightly earlier

church of St Mark at Skarpnck near Stockholmwhich also had rough brickwork, vaults, and muchexpressed construction. At Klippan, however, thelanguage is more refined and even more austere.

Classical decorative forms but could adopt the mostformal of schematic plans and build in ways that

were not just constructionally deceptive butpositively scenographic.7 The faked facade of highculture with its references to Greece and Romeremained as much a possibility as the primitive hutor log-cabin, and they could switch from one

precedent to the other even within a single project.8

This meant that expressing construction to isolateone issue was not so much a rule as a perpetualoption, always involving the question of what toexpress and how. For both architects the advent of

white Modernism around 1930was extremely short-lived, for almost immediately questions ofconstructional expression re-emerged. For Asplund,this meant that by the late 30s he was againpolarizing his work between a sophisticated and aprimitive vocabulary.9 For Lewerentz, the soul-searching led to an immersion in technical detailrivalled among Modernists only by Jean Prouv, for

he founded a firm called Idesta which producedhigh-quality door and window frames and alliedironmongery (Ahlin 1987: 138141).

Necessary irregularities

Just as the question of how to express or repress thesubstance of the building remained in debatethroughout the two architects careers, so theirNational Romantic background also gave them aspecial interest in the specifics of sites and thehandling of irregularities. They won the competitionfor the Enskede Cemetery mainly for the sensitivehandling of the forest site, and although their

development plan was for a while much moreformal, the final triumph lies in the subtleinteraction of given and imposed orders (Constant1994: 2947). Lewerentzs Chapel of the Resurrection,



6a


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The church and its setting

Klippan is a small town on the west side of Sweden.St Peters stands just east of the town centre, betweena pair of converging roads which lead out towardssuburbs. Beyond is a park, and the site initiallysuggested for the building was nearer the middle of

it, further to the east. However Lewerentz chose toanchor his church against the northern road fromwhich it is approached, turning the area to the west i.e. between it and the road junction, and facing thetown into a garden [6a]. This garden is the principal



6d

6c

6b

6 St Peters, Klippan,1963a Site plan (originaldrawing)b Floor plan1 Church

2 Font

3 Altar

4 Vestibule and

wedding chapel5 Entrance passage

6 Organist

7 Sacristy

8 Offices

9 Priest

10 Archive

11 Council room

12 Confirmation room

13 Meeting room

c West-east sectionthrough church

d North-southsection throughsacristy, church andmeeting room

8

8

9

9 10 11 12 12

133

1

24

5

7

6


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outdoor room of the complex, celebrating the westand main facade of the church [7], that with thelargest and most ceremonial doors, from which

couples emerge together for the first time aftermarriage. The space boasts the only piece of addedsculpture, and also a large brick-lined pool a stillNordic lake for reflection and reflectiveness, ratherthan the cooling fountain of the south.

The church is correctly orientated, so the altarstands opposite the west doors [6ad]. It is square inshape, suggesting a more intimate ritual in the

tradition of circonstantes (standing in a circle) [8] inplace of the more usual linear progression. Thismarks an attempt to return to origins: to the earlyChristianity of secret meetings in the catacombs.10

This was the religious equivalent of the search for



7

8


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the essential and the primitive that runs sopoignantly through the architecture. The church isentered via a side chapel off a tiny alleyway to thenorth [9], deliberately intimate and informal, forpeople arrive for religious observance one by one: itis only at the end of the service that, united by theexperience, they process out together through the

west doors. The bells are placed to one side of thisalleyway above the sacristy, so one is summoned bytheir music directly to the point of entry.

Behind the church to south and east is a lower L-shaped block of parish offices and meeting rooms,placed to make a larger square in plan with thechurch, set on the same diagonal. This element isseparated from the church by another outdoorroom, a narrow street-like space onto which doors ofthe various facilities open, and which is closed atnight by iron gates [10a]. It appears at first sight to beof constant width, but the minor branch south ofthe church is slightly narrower [10b].At the northend, where it gives onto the main road, the entry ispartly screened by a skewed free-standing wall. Theonly other departure from the right-angle in plan is

the stage of the meeting room. The facades facing thepark to south [11a] and east [11b] are the mostsubdued and informal, but they also boast thelargest windows belonging to the cornerconfirmation rooms; and also the most domestic

element the expressed fireplace and chimney ofthe meeting room, an original foyer.11 Theorganization of the complex is clearly hierarchical,focusing on the church as centre. The profaneelements are separated from it by the internalstreet, while it is touched to north by the semi-holyelements of sacristy and vestibule, the latter alsoserving as a wedding chapel.

Sacredness of vaults

Vaults have long been associated with religiousarchitecture. They are essential not only to theGothic, but also to Romanesque and Byzantine

building, and to mosques. They make a skyscape (wealso speak of the heavenly vault), they confer someorder and rhythm on the plan, and theydemonstrate inspiringly how the hardest andheaviest materials are persuaded to defy gravity.Their use in the second half of the twentieth centuryis unusual and could seem archaic, were they notreinterpreted in a wholly modern manner.

Lewerentz uses brick vaults, but what he does withthem is only possible with the strength of iron, forthey are laid between rolled steel joists. They areexpressed externally by following their form directly

with a copper skin, unlike the secondary roof ofGothic churches another instance of the desire toreturn to essentials. The church vaulting runs on theaxis of the altar [12], so it is seen externally on themost important west and east ends. It rises towardsthe centre, both to provide a spatial climax and todrain the rainwater to the sides, while it is liftedabove the supporting structure by a series ofminimal steel posts . This gives the impression thatthe vaults are floating above, rather than loadingonto, the supporting structure. They are in fact heldup on a pair of great transverse beams carried by across-shaped central column. That this element has amore than structural, utilitarian, profane role, isunderlined by it being asymmetrical whenstructural logic would demand symmetry. Theshorter arm is found, as one might expect, in thedirection of the altar. Although clearly symbolic, itremains T-shaped, without the upper arm of a truecross: for its meaning is evident enough, and mustnot be overstressed. The steelwork is not painted butleft raw and rusty, ageing, and therefore a symbol ofsuffering, but in a way more felt than analyzed.12 The

welded joints, as throughout the building, are leftunground, so the welders work appears in its nakedsimplicity.

This kind of vault was first tried at St MarksSkarpnck (1960), where vaults were used for all partsof the complex. At St Peters they occur morehierarchically: they serve only for the church, theside chapel, and the council chamber in the cornerof the L-shaped block. Furthermore, only the church

vaults are left visible externally, for the other parts ofthe complex have more profane low-pitched copper-

covered timber roofs. And while the roof edges ofvaults are finished as flush as possible[13a], theprofane buildings have overhanging eaves whichproject [13b], displaying their timber structure andthe way it is strapped down to the walls. These roof



9

7 The town or westside of the churchfaces the gardenwith its reflectingpool

8 Church interior seenfrom entry. Square

rather than linear,the plan sets thecongregation in acluster facing thealtar

9 The church entranceis through a small

chapel off an alleywayon the north side.Worshippers enter oneby one. After theservice they leavetogether through thewest doors(see 14b)


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projections are pulled out obliquely in several places,exaggerating the practical and profane need to bringthe rainwater to an outlet at the lowest point, butalso providing additional protection over doors. Thegeneral effect of the building in three dimensions isa lively profile quite unpredicted by the orthodoxand laconic looking plan.13

Crazy brickwork

Brick is used everywhere at St Peters, a rough darkbrick, between brown and purple in colour. In the

church it forms the walls, the vaulted roof, the altarand pulpit, and of course the floor. This is brokenonly by the baptismal trough at the corner whereone enters, a primeval slot, a water-filled fissure, theedge of which swells up mysteriously [14a]. The effectof all this brick is dark and hard and earthy: itgenerates a space almost invisible until ones eyesadapt to the gloom. It echoes with the quiet drip of

water from the tropical shell, set by Lewerentz on asteel frame, which serves as font. Baptism is theresounding theme: the space of the church is cave-like and intimate, more sanctuary than celebration,a place of deep mystery rather than stark protestant

clarity.In the external brickwork there is much play withdifferent bonding patterns, notably at the end of thestreet-like space to the east of the church, wherealternating vertical and horizontal coursing suggests

a huge chequerboard [14b], reminding one also ofthe decorative games played with brick infill on oldtimber-framed houses. Lewerentz seems to haveimposed one unorthodox rule at the start: a brickshould never be cut. This is not in the interests oftime-saving and modular construction, far from it:indeed it is almost an ironic comment on that idea made at a time when it was everywhere in force. ForLewerentz does so many difficult irregular things

with his bricks that his rule creates more problemsthan it solves. So why? Is it out of respect for the brickand what it wants to be, as Louis Kahn put it? Or isto create a discipline of construction which willinform the design an aesthetic derived from andfounded in technique? Perhaps both.

To avoid cutting bricks there are enormous joints.At the edges of sloping roofs are triangular wedges ofmortar as deep as a brick, achieved only by bulkingout the mortar with ground slate to make itconcrete-like. The effect is often crude and messy,almost shockingly so in places, and carried through

with utter ruthlessness. In dimensioning the plan,brick sizes had often to be the determining factor,and brick thicknesses had to be accommodated at

corners and junctions, requiring some unexpectedmanipulations. Internal floor tiles too were laiduncut, size adjustments being taken up within thepattern rather than at the edges, producing someunusual and ingenious arrangements.14



10a


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10b

10 The parish offices and

meeting rooms form alow L-shaped blockseparated from themain church by astreet-like spacea North entrance

with gates. Note

vault ends andrainwater disposal tochurchb West entrancewith councilchamber at far end


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11a

11b

11 Meeting room andparish offices, parksidesa Detail of southfacade facing parkwith the meetingroom fireplaceb East facade:

subdued andinformal

12 An archaic formreinterpreted in awholly modernmanner: the churchroof vaultsThe great transversebeams are carried bya cross shaped

central column with

its shorter arm in thedirection of the altar.The vaulting runs onthe axis of the altar.Rising to the centre,the vaults are raisedoff their supportingstructure on small

posts


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12


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Joinery

We began with the windows. The doors too, withnotable exceptions, are applied to the front of a brickhole, bolted on and sealed with mastic. Theexceptions are the most sacred, most hierarchicallyimportant doors. One is the main entrance [15a]down the side alley, the only door in the complex to

be placed at the back of its specially thickened brick hole rather than on the face, and with its ironcross the only one decorated with a symbol of anykind. Also exceptional are the two doors of the westfront [15b],which are placed flush within their

facade rather than onto its face. Normally it wouldmake no sense to change the principle of aconstruction detail in this way: that Lewerentz takesthe trouble to do so leaves us in no doubt that this

was his way of indicating the doors superior status.

The larger double door is also taller than others inthe building, declaring its role as ceremonial exit.

It would be only too easy, in concentrating ontraditions and crafts, to produce an olde worlde andsentimental image. This Lewerentz avoids completely

by reinterpreting ancient techniques and bycombining them with what was then the latesttechnology. The doors and their frames are made oflaminated timber, with glued joints left visible [15c].Externally they remain as sawn, with the slightridges produced when the separate strips of wooddid not quite lie flat in the gluing clamp, butinternally they are sanded off to give a smoothsurface, though the grain is visible beneath the

varnish. This slight difference of texture is the onlyconcession to the increase in civilization betweenfront and rear faces of the door,15 for both arefinished in the same dark stain. The construction ofthe doors is stated in a somewhat minimal way, forthough they are essentially formed of frame andpanel elements, the panel is made flush andcontinuous with the side pieces of the frame, whileonly a simple groove and change in direction ofgrain reveals the joints with the top and bottommembers. Running vertically down the centre ofeach door is an expansion slot between the two sides

of the panel, producing a clear vertical stripe.

Expressed construction or something more?

At first sight it seems that all materials andtechniques are exposed and expressed: brick and its



13b

13a 14b

14a


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bonding, timber and its assembly, the fragility ofglass, the unground welds of steel [16a]. Yet onfurther reflection it becomes obvious that thisexpression is neither wholly consistent norcomplete. Comparison with the expressive

brickwork of the nineteenth century, with that ofButterfield or Berlage for example, reveals a bigdifference. The openings are treated quite differently.For while an architect like Butterfield16would giveconsiderable attention to arches over doors and

windows, and to restraining arches in the wall above,Lewerentz takes bricks across the head of an openingapparently unsupported. This allows his brick holesto be treated in the same way on every edge, assertingtheir geometric purity, but it denies all expression ofthe way the forces of gravity make a headfundamentally different to a cill. The construction

was achieved, presumably, by laying steel reinforcingbars between the brick courses where tension forcesare felt. But all this is completely concealed. It iscertainly not brick construction in the traditionalsense, indeed it could almost be interpreted as aconcrete building, with the bricks acting asaggregate.17

The expression of functional requirements can beequally selective. The building had to be heated, a

very necessary provision in cold Sweden, and there isa basement boiler that somehow delivers hot air to



15a

15b

15c

16a

16b

13 The sacred and theprofanea The roof edges ofthe church vaults arefinished as flush aspossibleb Only the profanebuildings haveprojectingoverhanging eaves

14 Brick is usedeverywhere vaults,walls and floorsa The brick floorswells to reveal a

water-filled fissurebelow the fontb Chequerboardbrick infill byentrance to parishoffices

15 The doors are asexpressive as theunusual windowsa The main entrancedoor (see 9) is theonly one to have theframe placed at theback of thebrickwork openingand to be decoratedwith a symbolb The two doors inthe west front (see7) are placed flushwith the bricksurface. The larger

of the two is theceremonial exitc Detail showinglaminatedconstruction,

central expansionslot and sliding jointwith bottom rail.Externally doorsremain as sawn,internally they aresanded smooth

16 Many of thematerials and theirjoints are exposedand expressed butthis is not consistenta Welded handrailwith unground jointsb Copper rainpipes

with visibly solderedstraps see 10a forexposed pipes and13a for concealedones


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Notes

1. For the architectural education ofLewerentz and Asplund see ClaesCaldenby Beginnings in Engfors, C.(ed.)Lectures and briefings from theinternational symposium on the

architecture of Erik Gunnar Asplund

1417October 1985 in Stockholm and

Gothenburg, Swedish Museum of

Architecture, Stockholm 1986,pp810.

2. For an analysis of NationalRomanticism see Lane, B. M.,National Romanticism and Modern

Architecture in Germany and the

Scandinavian Countries, CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridge 2000.

3. For information on Fischer seeNerdinger, W.,Theodor Fischer:Architekt und Stdtebauer 18621938,Ernst & Sohn, Berlin 1988.

4. Until the early nineteenth century,the Gothic had not beensystematically studied, and it

rapidly progressed through severalinterpretations, moving from theRomantic Picturesque viewembraced by the Gothic novel to the

Constructive Rationalism of Viollet,which influenced the ModernMovement. The triumvirate Pugin,Ruskin and Viollet hadcomplementary talents: Puginproduced short and exaggeratedpolemics with satirical drawingslike hisTrue Principles (Pugin, A. W.,The True Principles of Pointed or

Christian Architecture, London 1853,[various modern facsimiles]).Ruskin produced sophisticatedaesthetic theory (The Stones of Venice:Ruskin 190312) and Viollet madean encyclopaedic study of survivingGothic buildings in France (Viollet-le-Duc, E.,Dictionnaire Raisonn delArchitecture Franaise du XI au XV1

sicle, Morel & Cie, Paris, 1873.) For ahistory of the Gothic Revival on theContinent see Germann, G., GothicRevival in Europe and Britain: Sources,

Influences and Ideas, LundHumphries with the Architectural

Association, London, 1972.5. The Gothic Revival and Kentish

vernacular meet at Philip WebbsRed House for William Morris,

particularly in relation to theplanned half-timbered and tile-hung extension. See Blundell Jones,P., The Red House inThe ArchitectsJournal (London) 15January 1986,pp3656.

6. The best and most detailed sourceon the design and construction ofthe Woodland Cemetery is Constant

1994.7. The most extreme example is the

extraordinary group of buildingsplanned by Asplund for the northside of Gustav Adolf Square inGothenburg.

8. Typically Asplunds WoodlandChapel was conceived in a Classicalversion before it was built in a rusticmanner with steeply pitchedshingle roof and tree-trunk ridgepole. Lewerentz played the samegame, for his Chapel of theResurrection is like Asplunds firstproject, while his primitive version

was built at Kvarnsveden.9. The Woodland Crematorium is

unmistakably Classical, while thecontemporary but less known

cavities in the walls. It then enters the churchthrough cills of window openings and a peppering ofopen joints in the inner brickwork. Apart from thepattern of openings, all is suppressed. But perhapsthe most interesting example of Lewerentzsselectivity is the treatment of rainwater. All the wayaround the subordinate buildings its disposal ismade highly conspicuous with projecting roof edges,

and on the back of the church the east face is anelaborate arrangement of copper gutters anddownpipes [16b] draining the vaults.18 On the westfront, however, there is no visible apparatus of thiskind, although the roof must discharge just as much

water. It disappears, apparently, into a series ofdownpipes concealed in the thickness of the walls.This was the right decision a poignant decision for it liberates the sacred face from profaneconsiderations and helps differentiate it from thehierarchically less important east face. In terms ofpure construction or convenience, however, it makesno sense again a change of principle in a detail

and in terms of functional expression it might beeven called downright dishonest.

From fact to fiction

But dishonest in whose terms? After a lifetime ofthought and experiment, Lewerentz knew exactly

what he was doing. He knew that pure use and pureconstruction as architectural determinants are achimera, that they are always open to interpretation.

Use and construction are nonetheless thefundamental themes of architecture, for by their

spatial relations and formal articulation, buildingsshow how they might be used, and encourage certainkinds of use. They have to be made, and tell us (or lieto us) about how they were made, if we can so readthem. Functionalism and Constructivism might thus

be considered less pedantic principles than fictionalthemes: the building telling stories about itself,relating to its ancestors and retelling its myth of

origins. That is what St Peters is about: it reveals thelatent poetry that lay at the heart of Modernism

before it became prosaic; and as distilled by one ofthe original pioneers.

Lewerentz spent much time on site developing thedetails, and it is in the details that the building livesmost profoundly. The crudeness, almost clumsy orugly in places, is not only deliberate but poetic. It isan old mans building, and the weight of a lifetimesexperience is somehow encapsulated, which can beas much by renunciation as by quotation. Lewerentzhad shown a propensity for Classical ordering, yet StPeters has no orders, no clear axial progressions,

little symmetry, and little in the way of an evidentproportioning system.19 In middle age, Lewerentzhad given his whole attention and energy todesigning door and window frames made by Idestaand prized by his colleagues, yet the windows atKlippan have no frame whatsoever: indeed they usethe most advanced technology of their time sealedunits and mastic expressly to avoid it. It wasperhaps typical of Lewerentz that in the age ofBrutalism he should have produced what now seemsthe last word in that manner.




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Skvde Crematorium returned tothe primitive model. Asplund alsoshowed his affection for thevernacular again in his summerhouse at Stenns of 1937.

10. Colin St John Wilson hascommented on this: see SigurdLewerentz 18851975: The Dilemma of

Classicism, Architectural Association

Publications, London 1988, p21. OnLewerentz more generally, see alsoWilson, C. St J.ArchitecturalReflections, Butterworth Oxford1992, pp111139.

11. The word in French originallymeant a hearth.

12. Often in the 1970s and 80s Post-Modernists produced deliberatesymbols to be read, for exampleTerry Farrells eggcups on TVAM andCharles Jenckss endless encodedsymbols in his own house. If youneed a written programme toundertake the intellectual

decoding, the thing is surelyalready too far removed.Lewerentzs rusty column issuffering visible degradation, andthe effect is felt.

13. It is the same with St MarksSkarpnck: the plan has subtletybut is not in itself rhetorical, andcould have given rise to a verydifferent building.

14. For example, where the tiled floorof a passage narrows by a fewcentimetres, all the tiles in thatsection are laid with tighter joints,and thus out of step with those of

the wider part.15. It seems to be a widely accepted

convention that buildings besmooth inside, rough without, likea coconut, expressing internally anincreased degree of control and

refinement, a transition from theraw to the cooked, from nature toartifice.

16. William Butterfield was a GothicRevival architect working in themiddle of the nineteenth century,and known particularly for his bolduse of polychromatic brickwork.Famous works are All Saints

Margaret Street, London, and KebleCollege Oxford.

17. I owe this reading to Florian Beigel.18. It was reported by Ahlin (1987) that

the apparatus of rainwatercollection was also an importantaspect of his restoration plans forUppsala cathedral, but thedrawings have not beenpublished.

19. There is a limited geometricalsystem in the plan, but it does notseem to run through consistently inthree dimensions, whereas theChapel of the Resurrection has a

clear proportional system bothvisible in the drawings andconfirmed by analysis.

For the definitive publication ofLewerentzs work see Dymling, C.(ed.),Architect Sigurd Lewerentz,Drawings and Photographs,Byggfrlaget, Stockholm 1997.

References

Ahlin, J. (1987). Sigurd LewerentzArchitect, MIT Press Cambridge MAand London.

Constant, C. (1994). The WoodlandCemetery: Toward a Spiritual Landscape,

Byggfrlaget Stockholm.

Illustration credits

arq gratefully acknowledges:Author, !a and b, 2, 3a and b, 4a and b,

5a, 6b (part), 6c and d, 7, 8, 9, 10aand b, 11, 12, 13a and b, 14a and b,15a-c, 16a and b

Swedish Architecture Museum 5b, 6a,6b (part)

Acknowledgements

This is an extract fromModernArchitecture Through Case Studies, due

to be published by ArchitecturalPress (ISBN 0750638052) this year.arq thanks Reed Educational andProfessional Publishing Ltd forconsent to reproduce thiscontribution.

The book is an attempt to look againat Modernism and to reframe itaccording to broader criteria thanthose adopted by Pevsner, Giedion,Hitchcock and Johnson and others.Using case studies, and beginningwith the Weissenhofsiedlung as acomparative study, thenconsidering works by Hring,

Gropius, Duiker, Taut, Mendelsohn,Le Corbusier, Aalto, Nervi, Terragni,Asplund, Wright, Scharoun, Mies,Lewerentz and Kahn.

Biography

Peter Blundell Jones is a Professor ofArchitecture at the University ofSheffield and author of majormonographs on Scharoun, Hringand the Graz School.

Authors address

Professor Peter Blundell JonesSchool of Architectural Studies

University of SheffieldBox 595The Arts TowerSheffield s10 2ujUnited [email protected]

design arq . vol 5 . no 2 . 2001 173

sigurd lewerentz_church of st peter

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